Appeal for disability - reception

[Hils78]

Hi, new to all this, would be grateful for thoughts. My daughter has limited movement in her feet/ankles due to a complication with clubfoot that means she also has drop foot. She has balance issues, falls and tires more easily and needs a small school with no steps. Only one of the options ticks these boxes (second closest), I submitted medical letters in support and referred in the application to her PD SENS contact at the LA. Instead she’s been allocated the local catchment infant school, 3-class intake with steps and feeding to the junior site which is over 2 floors. There’s no mention of disability in the reasons, only geography. I’m trying to get the exact reasoning out of the LA (if any). Seems to be an error but am I missing something? Any advice for the appeal? Thanks

Surely any school has to be accessible wothout steps to a degree. Have you visited and asked what adjustments they can make? Does the letter state she was placed in the distance criteria not medical/social needs for your preferred school?

Firstly, does the school actually have a medical criteria in its own admissions? Just because there is a box to tick on the application doesn't mean the school actually has such a criteria.

If so you need to check that you were considered under it. It may be that they considered it but decided other schools could meet her needs (you need to show that this school is the only one that could do so).

If they considered you but didn't accept the evidence was enough, you could try appealing that the decision was unreasonable, though this is a high bar - is the appeal infant class size?

Yes I have, the other schools all have steps that can’t be avoided, handles could be put on them all which would help, but wouldn’t get round the additional fatigue / loss of concentration, and the medical report recommends additional staff time essentially following her round to make sure she doesn’t fall. The local GP letter I’ve got for the appeal specifies support for this school. The school does have medical criteria based on the Equality Act definition which she meets (though the follow up letter from her senior orthopaedic physiotherapist is more explicit about this than the original letter, using the relevant headings etc). The refusal letter specified the reason as distance and that the appeal will be ICS. Our case will be that ICS wouldn’t have applied if there hadn’t been a mistake in the admission procedure. Will the relative prejudice rule apply in this case? I’ve asked the LA for their reasons but radio silence so far - a bit like when I asked them for guidance in the first place...

Then your argument is that the decision to admit is Unreasonable. If it's ICS, relative prejudice isn't applicable.

Your argument needs to be that she should have been considered and accepted for a place under the medical criteria and that the decision not to was unreasonable under the definition required for ICS.

Ideally you would have in writing that they considered her and decided not to place her in that category. If they didn't even consider her, then you also have an argument that the admissions criteria were incorrectly applied in her case as you ticked the medical box.

The slight problem is that if you are adding new evidence now; the panel are supposed to take a ruling on whether the decision was unreasonable based on the information the admissions authority had at the time. It was up to you to provide all that, referring to another medical professional/support team doesn't count - the authority are not going to get input themselves. That said, anything you have that says this school is the only school for her should be submitted. Panels can be persuaded.

I would try and find out who makes the medical decisions for this school. If it is a LEA school then it will be their panel. Sometimes for academies they have their own panel, which can often be questioned as not having the expertise to make this decision.

Thank you Patricia, I will do. It’s frustrating because I tried from May 2018 to get their guidance (on the recommendation of the headmistress who was perfectly supportive) and the one time I did get through, they said it was fine to simply submit the letters I had, nothing about making sure I had the professional reports set it out under the right headings. At the same time, her PD SENS contact at the LA told me she was sure it would go through fine, and that I should meet her there at the end of the summer term to handover care arrangements. I was aware of the need to collect evidence well in advance and followed the LA’s own advice. Should I raise that with the panel, or is it not worth it being ‘too late now’?

...also, if it is the case that it wasn’t even considered, presumably they are obliged to be honest about that? I can see it might be tempting for them to say it was considered and not placed in that category, even if it was actually missed. Do they have to provide dated extracts proving it was considered at the relevant time? How much detail are they obliged to give about exactly how the decision was reached? The school tells me that the LEA is wholly responsible for the process. Thanks again

They should be honest about what has happened. If they haven't considered your daughter for medical priority they should say so. If they have but decided not to give her priority they should say so and be able to explain the decision.

It sounds like you have a good case. If you want to PM me the name of the school and LA involved I will be happy to take a further look.

Thanks, I have PM’d you

Having read your posts I am not convinced that the admission criteria included one for medical/ social. Was there actually on the admission criteria one for medical / social or because the form asked for you to comment that you (and others) have assumed that it will be taken into consideration when it would not have been.
If there is a medical /social criteria then you should definitely be appealing on the basis that there is no evidence that the LA considered your application under medical /social. There comment on the reason for none admission would suggest there was no consideration.

Having seen the admission criteria, I can confirm that they have a category for disabled children who need a school that is fully accessible - much more specific than the usual medical/social category. It is hard to see how the OP's daughter did not qualify for inclusion if they considered her properly. I agree that the lack of any reference to this in the letter suggests they didn't consider her for this category at all.

Thanks all - it’s good to know there is consensus that the lack of evidence that medical grounds were considered in the letter indicates it wasn’t considered at all. There wasn’t an option to attach supporting documents on the online form so I emailed the letters separately on the same day, cross-referring between that and the application form itself (as the LA instructed) and have an acknowledgment email, so there’s no debate that they received them. I’ll find out in due course but, until then, it means I will rely on the ‘mistake in admission procedure’ ground as well as unreasonableness (and disability, going by this LA’s appeal form). In the meantime her pending trip to the States for a specialist medical opinion is on hold because I can’t concentrate on anything except this!